In Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy role-playing games, it is common to draw up a pantheon of gods. Often, there are nine gods to match the nine traditional alignments. But then DMs find they want sahuagin to worship a sahuagin god while orcs worship an orc god, and so on, enlarging the pantheon to practically infinite size. This is fine, but it’s not a coherent cosmology, and it causes problems when the DM wants to integrate some fun lore about ancient times or the creation of the world into the campaign.

Better would be to decide on a coherent cosmology that is flexible enough to handle the various alignments and also allow for bizarre gods (or at least idols or demons) to provide monster shamans with power as well.

1. A Single Neutral God

There is one god who blesses devout followers with divine power. But this god is neutral or callous, and cares little how that power is used and may ignore or even encourage conflict as a means of determining which followers adore the god more. Or it may be good but allow followers free will to do as they please, merely hoping that they follow the correct path.

Either way, as a result, different sects worship the god in different guises, and good-aligned creatures may destroy temples of evil (and vice versa) because of their ethos and actions rather than the god they worship or because they regard it as a corruption of the god they share. Druids worship this god in a natural context, as the creator of all things, and revere the god’s very neutrality as divine. Evil creatures worship a perversion of the true god or a false god (gaining their powers from a non-divine source, such as a witch, lich, or demon).

2. A Group of Jealous Gods

There are several–or even many–gods, but each one wants to be the only one. And so, their followers are frequently at odds with each other, particularly those of opposed alignments. Each one’s followers admit that the other gods exist (because they give power to their followers), but they are evil or wrong or, at best, misguided and should be discouraged, suppressed, or outright destroyed.

They may be divided among racial lines, with humans, elves, dwarves, goblins, orcs, etc. each having their own god. Or they may be divided among various spheres of influence, such as health, trickery, war, love, harvest, travel, weather, etc.

The gods themselves are immortal but their power waxes and wanes with the size of their following–they could even die, if they have no followers at all. The world was created by them in concert, in the distant past when they got along, but creating worshipers put them at odds.

3. A Pantheon of Gods

There are several gods, and each blesses devout followers with power. People are free to worship whichever they please, even switching between them at times. Some, of course, are evil or troublesome, worshiped by evil people and monstrous creatures, and should be fought and their power minimized.

They are typically divided among various spheres of influence, such as health, trickery, war, love, harvest, travel, weather, etc. But sometimes a city will choose one god as its patron (or vice versa) and venerate it above others.

There is often strife and intrigue among the gods, with some helping their followers against another’s and some allying intimately. This leads to the death of some gods at the hands of others (mortals certainly can’t kill gods) and the birth of new ones as the result of divine liaisons, resulting in the whole pantheon changing over the eons.

The world has always been and was not created by any particular god or else was created by (or is the corpse of) a long-dead ur-god.

4. A Host of Gods

There are numerous gods, and anyone may appeal to any or all of them. The gods often act collectively but may also act singularly to fulfill a request, such as the gods of war and death aiding a cleric in vengeance one time and the gods of friendship and fertility aiding in a celebration at another time.

The lesser humanoids may worship strange variants or lesser gods that amount to demons. The world has always been and was created together by the host of gods to reflect their various ideals and desires.

5. Saints & Demons

There are no gods, but when intelligent creatures die, their spirits sometimes linger on the material plane. Most are various sorts of harmless spirits, vindictive ghosts, and other undead. But the most powerful are considered saints or demons and are able to manifest their power in their followers.

Not only can the followers of saints and demons be fought, but the spirits themselves can sometimes be fought and destroyed, creating a slow churn of relevant spirits available to worship. Sometimes, the saint of one sect is destroyed in war with another sect, and the clerics lose their powers until they choose another saint to worship.

The world always always existed, but natural forces (like plate tectonics, volcanoes, and glaciers) radically alter it over time.

6. Ancestor Worship

There are no gods, and the divinely devout instead worship their ancestors for help from beyond the natural world. Some worship with idols that symbolize their ancestors, but it is really the collective power of their ancestors that power their clerics’ or shamans’ spells.

The earth started as one woman floating in the heavens, impregnated with the waters of the heavens, giving birth to another, dying and turning to soil. And so it went, growing the world, with trees and animals arising along the way, much of it compacting into rock. Dead bodies decay and turn to soil to this very day.

7. Nature Worship

There are no gods, but the natural world is a source of power for all creatures with divine inspiration to tap into it. Some turn it to wicked purpose and worship it in the form of idols, and some worship only a certain aspect of it, sometimes causing clashes between sects.

In this world, druids have found the one true way: to worship all of nature in all its frightening, callous, awesome power, and to seek harmony in balance.

The world is the physical remains of untold numbers of plants and animals. The world started with one single seed of one single tree, which found one single drop of water in the void of space. And the fallen fruit and leaves of that ur-tree coalesced into a planet, growing a little more each year and catching more drops of water. The energy of the sun creates more plants, which leads to more animals, which leads to more soil, slowly growing the world forever.

8. Enlightenment

There are no gods. All divine power is a manifestation of the spirit within and an expression of the cleric’s own alignment. It is fed and magnified by the beliefs of like-minded creatures, including those who cannot express divine power themselves (the adherents, as opposed to clerics).

Some creatures mistake this for an external god and worship idols, but this is foolish ignorance, for their power is less for their lack of recognition of the true source of their power.

The world began as a spirit from beyond the material plane, which produced an idea, which was manifest as material, and which grew gradually until it produced living creatures which themselves drew spirit from the ethereal plane and manifest more physical material.

Elder Gods

Whatever you choose for the main religions of your world, you might consider that the current gods displaced elder gods who may still live and hold sway among monsters. Their power may have waned due to their age or from a lack of followers, but they can still grant powers to their believers.

Your Choice

Make your choice and build your world the way you want.

Your author only hopes you make the right choice, for there is only one right choice. And if you make it, you may live in Eternal Summer for all time after your material death.

But if you falter and make no choice, you will live in Eternal Toil, endlessly plowing and planting and immediately reaping and threshing forever. But if you make the wrong choice or live a wicked life, you will go to Eternal Winter, forever wanting, forever cold….